Captain Marvel

I’ll be honest with you guys, I have plenty of complaints about this movie. There are some bright spots, and we will get to those as well; but just as an introduction on where my mindset is at, I think Captain Marvel is a very middle-of-the-road or even slightly worse Marvel movie.

            There’s no better place to start at than the beginning. I am basically convinced that much of the cutting board of the film is the beginning. It’s jumbled up and confusing, and it feels like the characters weren’t fleshed out all that much. I’m thinking that Marvel wanted to keep better pacing, so I’m convinced there are more scenes that we didn’t see. And it carries us over to what is probably my biggest complaint of all. From the opening training scene super reminiscent of “I know kung fu” from The Matrix to the first real action scene, not only is the lighting pretty terrible, but more importantly, the editing is absolutely atrocious. You can tell that people like Brie Larson and Jude Law trained for months in preparation for their roles, and you hardly get to see any of it because of how many quick shots are in each and every action scene. Either go take notes from extended, steady cam scenes from the likes of John Wick, Children of Men, or the Christopher McQuarrie Mission Impossible films just to name a few; or go watch Paul Greengrass’s The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum to figure out how to do quick edit, shaky cam fights correctly.

            We are also introduced to some side Kree characters that feel like they could’ve been used similarly to the Asgardian warriors in Thor. Unfortunately, these characters are forgotten about for most of the rest of the film. Which I would have been mostly fine with because it allows depth into the whole ‘90s vibe of the film with Fury and Coulson, but Djimon Hounsou is part of the group. He is a perpetually underrated and used actor who has been in Gladiator, Amistad, and gives a killer performance in Blood Diamond. His character is actually the same as when he had a small role in Guardians of the Galaxy, but that really doesn’t matter because he’s hardly in this film anyways.

            Now to address the small elephant in the room, and I’m not talking about the Dumbo preview, maybe I’m being harsh on a movie that is supposed to be so important for an empowering message for females everywhere. And to that defense, Brie Larson isn’t the problem of the film. She clearly put loads of work into the role, and her personality and origin story is one of the best of the Marvel universe and stands out. With that said, I thought this movie was going to be so much funnier than it was. And it had some potential, but the comedic timing is so drastically off. And many of those jokes involved Ms. Marvel, but I’m going to put that blame on the directors.

            As far as story goes, there’s both good and bad. There are two elements to a plot twist that happens, and one part I found predictable, but the other lent itself to some great character development. On a totally unrelated note, Ben Mendelsohn I think does the best job acting in the film, and that’s while he’s under all of that makeup. But anyways, the good part of the story is the actual origin element. Iron Man worked so incredibly well, and even though it was pretty much a carbon copy, Doctor Strange also satisfied with his origin. But Marvel was getting to the brink of overplaying its card. Luckily, this is a fresh story that works well.

            As far as visual effects go, I was underwhelmed. Technically speaking, the de-aging process for Fury and Coulson is incredible and much better than totally animated Tarkin from Rogue One, but in a similar sense, you still know that it’s fake and it’s hard to keep that out of your mind. Beyond that there are a couple interesting moments in the memory sequences, but I’d describe the overall visual effects as pretty subpar for Marvel standards.

            The movie works really well when it hunkers down on the ‘90s references and lets the actors shine without much interference from the editing room or the directors, but with a totally forgettable score, subpar visuals, and the worst edited fight sequences so far from Marvel, Captain Marvel was a little underwhelming. I wish the character the best, and there’s certainly plenty to look forward to in Endgame, but when some of the best moments are from the cat Goose, this does not rank too high on my Marvel list. Maybe I’m being cynical, but in the name of justice of movie reviews, I’m okay with that.

In Brief:

·       I saw the two big animated films that came out recently: The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Lego Movie 2 is both worse than the first and The Lego Batman Movie, but there’s still solid humor. And although not quite as good as the fantastic How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Hidden World is a stunning sequel that caps the trilogy in fashion. Seriously, some of the wide shots of the landscapes in that film are breathtaking, and it has a terrific villain, moving story, and humor and heart to boot as well. If you’re thinking of seeing one or the other, my vote is absolutely for Dragon.

·       You can catch me watching Jordan Peele’s Us at some point. I enjoyed Get Out, didn’t think it was amazing, but I did enjoy it. But Us is something I really have been looking forward to.

·       I have not been impressed by the live-action remakes of Disney’s animated films coming up. Probably won’t see Dumbo, and as much as I don’t see the need to update the visuals and modernize Aladdin and The Lion King, I might end up seeing those anyways just because I love those movies—especially The Lion King.

·       The Toy Story 4 trailer dropped, and I can tell already that that movie is going to make me emotional.